Burned Out and Stressed Out? How to Achieve Work-Life Balance and Create Time For What Matters Most

Failure to find a healthy work-life balance can result in a lot of stress. Coupled
with work-related stress, this can lead to burnout. Read on to learn
how you can deal with stress and avoid job burnout by achieving a
healthy work-life balance and creating time for what matters most...

Most working moms and dads are tormented by competing
demands they face at work and at home. Studies indicate that 83% of women
and 72% of men experienced significant conflict between family and work.

Most parents want to spend more time with their loved
ones, but they are afraid to put their jobs at risk by working less.
Especially in a tough economy, they end up working so much longer and harder to protect their income and jobs. As a consequence, their work
can end up controlling their lives.

The struggle to find work-life balance — or the resulting failure to find a healthy balance between work and personal life — leads to a lot of stress.

Busy parents already struggling with work demands, have to deal with
even more pressure trying to spend more time with loved ones while
climbing the corporate ladder or trying to achieve entrepreneurial
success.

Job stress-related expenses cost American businesses over
$200 billions a year. But, the cost to families are even greater: increased family conflicts, increased divorce rate, increased problems
with children, increased alcohol and substance abuse as well as serious
illnesses.

The consequence of parents having to deal with work-life balance stress in addition to job-related stress, can be burnout.

Burnout
is a process which results from intensive and long-term stress in the
workplace. It is an insidious problem for many workers. The symptoms
include overwhelming stress, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, cynical
detachment from work, inability to function productively due to physical and mental exhaustion.

Achievement-oriented people are often at high risk for burnout. It
tends to affect a company’s best executives, managers and employees who
really care about achieving in their jobs. It also affects
entrepreneurs extremely driven to achieve success.

These achievers start feeling that they are not accomplishing
enough. So, they work even harder, faster and longer. Unfortunately,
this can lead to ineffectiveness and increased fatigue. When they just
keep on working longer and longer hours, these achievers are the ones
most likely to wipe out.

How do you avoid burnout?

Burnout often results from lack of self-awareness, lack of respect
for personal needs and priorities. The process of preventing and
overcoming burnout involves stress management as well as inner work and
self-care.

Inner work involves clarifying your values
and what matters most in your life; this requires greater understanding
of who you are, what you need and what you want from your life. Self-care
involves accepting, understanding and respecting your emotional, spiritual and physical needs.

How do you avoid burnout while increasing job and life satisfaction?

Studies show that stress at home interferes with work performance
and productivity. Conversely, stress at work interferes with harmony at
home; it creates or magnifies problems at home. These studies show the
importance of having a healthy work-life balance in order to perform
well and be productive at work as well as prevent problems at home.

Most working parents — especially high-achievers — are fearful that
they will end up losing their job or getting passed over for a
promotion if they stop working longer and longer hours.

The opposite is actually true. Working longer and longer hours leads
to ineffectiveness and increased fatigue. Quality of work performance
and productivity decrease when time demands and corresponding stress
increase.

What’s the solution?

Instead of working a lot and sacrificing your time with loved ones,
making time for what matters most to you and what makes you happy can
actually improve your work performance and productivity.

Studies indicate that work performance and productivity as well as resulting job satisfaction are determined to a great extent by
activities outside of work that enhance life satisfaction including, social support, self-renewal and balancing the needs of work and loved
ones.

Instead of jeopardizing your work performance, making time for what
matters most to you and makes you happy — including, spending time with
your loved ones — can actually improve your productivity and job
satisfaction.

What most working parents fear usually does not happen. Since work
performance and productivity as well as job satisfaction improve, the
chances of losing your job or getting passed over for a promotion
decrease.

Video Shows a Simplified View of the Importance of Achieving Work-Life Balance and Creating Time For What Matters Most

How to Get Started Achieving a Healthy Work-Life Balance

How do you get started making time for what really matters if you currently have a time-demanding job?

If you are currently working ten-hour days or more — but you want to
free up some time — you don’t have to revamp your whole schedule. You
can just reduce your workday by half an hour or more. It’s a simple way
to ease into decreasing your time-demanding job. Your work productivity
will not be affected much by working one half hour less. Most people
who work very long days are less and less productive by the end of the
day — it’s the law of diminishing returns. So, you’re just cutting time that’s mostly being wasted.

Surprisingly, most people are more productive when working
fewer hours — they manage their time better, are more effective and efficient.

If you are bringing more and more value to your company and you are
making more significant contributions, you’re more likely to be noticed
by management — you’re more likely to be promoted.

How do you spend your extra time?

You can use your extra time to do something you enjoy. If you’re not
sure how you want to spend your extra time, you can use it to relax and slow down — and then you can use your free time to figure out what you
really want to do.

When you get used to taking a break from overworking, you can be
more creative with your free time; you can use your extra time to spend some time in nature, spend some time with your loved
ones, take
long walks or have some quiet time. You can do whatever it is that makes you
happy.

By not working longer and longer hours, you can avoid increasing
your fatigue and ineffectiveness at work. By making time for what
matters most to you and makes you happy, you can increase your
happiness and life satisfaction. In turn, this can increase your productivity, work
performance and job satisfaction.

By increasing your happiness, job and life satisfaction, you can
decrease your work-life balance stress and avoid the process of burnout.

Healthy Work-Life Balance: You Can Make Simple Changes That Can Increase Your Happiness As Well As Effectiveness At Work and At Home

Watch the Video to Learn How to Find and Keep the Delicate Balance Between Work and Life

Do you have a healthy work-life balance or not? Please share your ideas and comments.

No HTML is allowed in comments, but URLs will be hyperlinked. Comments are not for promoting your articles or other sites.

sending

Ian D Hetri

5 years agofrom Papua New Guinea

Brilliant piece. Full of useful information..Sharing the hub. Voted up.

kkgifts

8 years agofrom Florence, SC

Great hub. loved it, whish I could have read this about 5 months ago, but then again by then i was so far gone it wouldn't have sunk in. check out my hub economic burn out-our new reality. It's about what happened to me. I just quit a job over burn out. I look forward to reading more of your hubs thumbs up

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)

Google AdSense Host API

This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Facebook Login

You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)

Maven

This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)

We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.

Conversion Tracking Pixels

We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.

Statistics

Author Google Analytics

This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)

Comscore

ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)

Amazon Tracking Pixel

Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)